Travis Kvapil hopes to be in the mix in Daytona.

Janesville native seeks top 10 finish at Coke Zero 400

NASCAR takes Travis Kvapil this weekend to a track at which he and his team are at perhaps their greatest disadvantage and yet where they have their best chance.

Based on the sheer speed of their race cars, the Janesville native and teammate David Reutimann are no match for Matt Kenseth or Jimmie Johnson. BK Racing has made some progress with their Toyota engines, but especially at Daytona and Talladega, they're well down on horsepower.

But for the most part at those tracks, drivers run in a pack, the slowest of the bunch able to keep up with the fastest because of their wake. Kvapil showed in the Daytona 500 that if he could stay in the pack he could work his way through it. Before getting crashed on the last lap, he took the white flag in 11th, not bad for a team that has totaled three top 20 finishes with two cars in 17 races.

"We're looking for the same kind of thing," Kvapil said of his return to Daytona International Speedway for the Coke Zero 400 on Saturday night. "The car was driving good. I think I've always done a decent job staying out of trouble and kind of making the right moves at the right time on the restrictor-plate race.

"When we go to Daytona and Talladega, for our team, BK Racing, we feel like these are opportunity races for us. We can run up front. We can excel."

Win? No. Not likely at all. But who would have bet the Ragan-Gilliland exacta at Talladega? David Gilliland pushed teammate David Ragan across the line there two months ago as third-tier Front Row Motorsports scored the biggest upset the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series in years. NASCAR's two big tracks, especially with their grippy recent repaving jobs, can be a huge equalizer.

"We can go out and get a solid finish, get a top 10. Certainly we're going to try like hell to win," Kvapil said Thursday from the garage area in Daytona Beach, Fla. "It's one thing to run in the pack and get in line, but when you've got to get out front and lead, you've got to have good power. That's a little bit different.

"But nonetheless, we're going to do the best we can, play it smart and hopefully we can be up there in the mix at the end and you never know."

Time to go

In the past month, Johnson has been penalized for jumping one late restart and left in the dust on another, costing him two good chances to pad his total of three victories. The five-time NASCAR champion says perhaps it's time to change his approach.

"I feel like I'm maybe a little focused on the way the rule reads exactly and paying maybe too close of attention to that," Johnson said Thursday at Daytona. "At the end of the day I'm just going to lighten up on how I think about it and use that (restart) zone and that area regardless of the way the rule reads to get an advantage and worry about myself."

A rebirth

Kenny Wallace said he felt like he'd been stabbed in the heart last year when the Nationwide Series team for which he drove took him out of the seat for drivers who could bring money. But the driver/broadcaster found new life in an old diversion, barnstorming on dirt tracks with his own team.

Wallace made a stop at the Milwaukee Mile on Wednesday to test for Tuesday's Howie Lettow 150 ARCA Midwest Tour race but had to bail out early to get to Jacksonville, Ill., to compete Wednesday night.

"It's hard to get $100,000 a race" to a Nationwide team, Wallace said. "I choose not to do it anymore. It's draining. Inevitably that's the new deal for anybody. Nobody can bring $3½ million anymore, so I chose to just go dirt racing.

"I employ two people, I race 60 dirt races a year, we're serious about it, but when things don't go good, we're allowed to mope for about five minutes and then we start drinking beer."

Thrice as nice

Indianapolis 500 winner Tony Kanaan can take another step this weekend toward becoming the first Triple Crown winner in Indy-car racing since 1978.

A $1 million bonus has been posted for any driver who can win the races on the IZOD IndyCar Series' three biggest tracks, Indy, Pocono Raceway and Auto Club Speedway. The Pocono 400 at the 2½-mile triangular track in Long Pond, Pa., is scheduled for Sunday (11 a.m. on ABC-TV).

"The man is capable of winning; he showed that," said Al Unser, the only driver to have won an Indy-car Triple Crown. "But there are about 10 other guys out there that will be close chasing him."

Previous triple-crown competitions in Indy-car racing included 500-milers at Indy, Pocono and Ontario (Calif.) Speedway from 1971-'80 and Indy, Pocono and Michigan from '81-'89.

The Fuzzy's Triple Crown promotion does include a consolation prize for Kanaan or another driver, $250,000 for winning two of the three. The final leg is the Oct. 19 season finale in Fontana, Calif.

Triple triple

With its return to Pocono and return to a Triple Crown miniseries, IndyCar also announced this week that it would use three-abreast starts for the second and third legs. That has been the procedure at Indy since 1921 and was used in previous Triple Crown events.

Reading material

The latest book by longtime racing fan, journalist and spiritual adviser Father Dale Grubba, "The Milwaukee Modified Era, 1959-'73," is available. The deeply researched, self-published soft-cover can be purchased from Coastal 181 at (877) 907-8181 or www.coastal181.com and at the Slinger Speedway souvenir stand, among other vendors.

Playing up

Bill Balog, five-time champion of the regional IRA sprint-car series, finished no worse than 11th in the World of Outlaws' Illinois-Wisconsin weekend, fifth last Friday at LaSalle, 11th Saturday at Beaver Dam and sixth Sunday at Cedar Lake.

A trip to the park

The Wisconsin Historical Society is taking parts of its Alan Kulwicki exhibit on the road for an evening, from 7-9 p.m. Monday at the Brooks Pavilion at Alan Kulwicki Park, 10777 W. Coldspring Road, Greenfield. The event is timed to coincide with ARCAFest at the Milwaukee Mile on Monday and Tuesday.

The park pavilion houses trophies won by the late NASCAR champion. A roundtable discussion features Kulwicki's public relations representative and friend, Tom Roberts. For information visit www.kulwickiexperience.com.

History: Tony Stewart separated drafting teammates Matt Kenseth and Greg Biffle last year to get by them and score his fourth 400 victory in eight seasons. Jimmie Johnson won the 500 in February but hasn't won the 300. The last competitor to score a season sweep was Bobby Allison in 1982.

Season to date: Kenseth's victory Sunday at Kentucky gave him a season-leading four. He's fifth in points behind leader Johnson, but bonus points from victories will matter more when the Chase field is set in two months.

IndyCar Series

Event: Pocono 400, the 11th of 19 races.

When: 11:15 a.m. Sunday.

Where: Pocono Raceway, a 2.5-mile triangular track in Long Pond, Pa.

Distance: 160 laps, 400 miles.

Broadcast: ABC (Channel 12), 11 a.m.

History: Indy cars made the last of their 19 appearances on the track in 1989, a CART event won by Danny Sullivan. The winners' list reads like a Who's Who, led by A.J. Foyt, who won four times.

Season to date: Andretti Autosport has won the past two races, James Hinchcliffe at Iowa and Ryan Hunter-Reay at Milwaukee, and the two have combined to win five of the first 10. Nonetheless, Helio Castroneves leads the standings by nine points over Hunter-Reay on the strength of a win and nine top-10 finishes.